Students Help Tanzanian Violence Survivors
There are superstitious beliefs in Tanzania that body parts of the people with albinism — a genetic condition, according to the National Institutes of Health, characterized by a lack of melanin in the skin, hair, and eyes — can confer wealth, health, and political power. Those with albinism are hunted, mutilated or murdered for their body parts, which are then sold for thousands of dollars to witch doctors, also known as traditional healers. But students in the Orthotics and Prosthetics (O&P) program at Drexel University, Elkins Park Campus, are trying to make a meaningful difference for some of the victims of that violence. They recently had a chance to work with four upper limb amputees who traveled from Tanzania to the United States, making prostheses for them at MedEast in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
Service Trip Brings Hope and Happiness to Ecuador
During a recent volunteer trip to Quito, Ecuador, Caitie Steele ‘26O&P, treated a patient named Jefferson who had his leg amputated below the knee after a car accident. He had no way of affording a prosthesis and thought his life was pretty much over.
But when Steele and her Salus at Drexel University classmate Mary-Kate Dennis ‘26O&P showed up as volunteers for the Range of Motion Project (ROMP) eight years after his amputation, Jefferson had hope. He had applied and been accepted as a patient for the Range of Motion Project and Steele was about to make him his first prosthesis. The two Salus/Drexel students in the Orthotics and Prosthetics (O&P) program traveled to Ecuador from July 5 through July 14, 2024. While there, the Range of Motion group made 21 lower limb prostheses for people who otherwise don’t have access to that type of care.
Kenya Trip Offers Hands-on Experience to Students
During a humanitarian trip to Kenya, Victoria “Tori” Page, MSOP '25, had a young patient who hadn’t walked since her leg amputation the previous year. Page spent a long time working on a prosthesis trying to make her patient as comfortable as possible. At the end of her appointment, Page asked her patient how her new leg felt. “She looked at me with a big smile and said, ‘I’m walking!’,” she said. Page, along with Nick Ruppenthal, MSOP '25, and Chad Duncan, PhD, CRC, CPO, director of the Salus University Orthotics and Prosthetics (O&P) program, were part of a small contingent that traveled to Kenya from March 9 to March 17, 2024, to make and fit protheses for children.
The group included O&P colleagues from Hartford University for a trip organized by Robert Schulman, CP, founder and executive director of the Limb Kind Foundation, a global organization committed to helping children with limb loss.
It was the first humanitarian trip the University's O&P students have had an opportunity to participate in since the founding of the program in the fall of 2022. Page and Ruppenthal are members of the program’s inaugural class